Wills and provision for DCs

[chillipickle]

We are updating our wills and need to sort out arrangements for the care of our DCs should anything happen to both of us.

We have life insurance which should provide for them financially, and after some debate (which I will spare you the full details of) we have agreed that OH's parents are best placed to be guardians.

In our existing wills, written before we had DCs, we appointed friends to be executors and trustees, on the basis that they are sensible and good at this sort of thing.

However, it occurs to us that now they wouldn't just have to carry out the instructions in our wills, but also manage the estate until our DCs inherit it - which could be another 20 years. During which time they would have to be in contact with OH's parents regarding financial provision for the DCs. They have agreed to do this, but we would like to be sure we're setting it up to be as simple as possible for everyone.

The friends/trustees have never met the guardians/in-laws, and I think it would be fair to say they are quite different in their outlooks, the friends being rather more similar to me . So I think we have to be clear about our wishes, rather than expecting them to work it out between themselves.

OH's parents are near retirement and will be living on small pensions, so would need a regular income to provide for the DCs. The reason for not giving them full control as trustees themselves isn't because I fear they would spend the whole lot unwisely - rather the opposite. They have always lived on very modest incomes and are careful with money, but left to themselves I fear they would save everything for the DCs to inherit later rather than investing some and spending the rest on them as they grow up.

Has anyone been through anything similar? If so, how did you organise it?

if you children are very young and your aprent snear retirement - then is it wise to have them alone as guardians? would you not want someone younger also named? or..."if granparents are not alive then xxxxx "

Hi Chillipickle.

I'm a willwriter and would suggest that whoever is writing your will includes a clause expressing your wishes as to how the trust is used. In most scenarios, the Guardians will approach the trustees every six months or twelve months to ask for £x to cover the upcoming expenses. If the Guardians aren't very well off, then they can agree with the Trustees for a regular direct debit from the Trust (which may be a simple bank account).

However, you mention that at least part of the money you're leaving will be from a life insurance policy, and it's likely that the Trustees of that policy will themselves administer that part of your estate, independently of the Trustees you'll appoint under your Will. Best to double check with the insurance company first.

BTW, I agree that it may be better to appoint Guardians of your own generation.

Good points both. Yes, ideally we would like to appoint guardians closer to our own age, but there's no-one obviously suitable in either of our families, and we have been debating asking friends, but... I don't know, it is a huge ask. However I'm thinking perhaps we need to have that conversation again before finalising our wills.

Mumblechum, who'd have thought there was a willwriter on here? And most annoyingly you are only a couple of miles down the road from us, so you would have been the ideal person to update our wills if we weren't already halfway through the process with a local solicitor. Pah.

Not to worry Chilli

So we did have the conversation again about guardians, and have decided on people of our own age.

Thanks both for the helpful comments, as it got us thinking more clearly about the situation, and I think we have ended up with a better arrangement than we would have done otherwise.

I'm sure you're being very sensible about guardians and trustees, but as someone who is stuck in hell with awful trustees imposed on us by a hostile person, can I urge you to be clear in your will if you have strong feelings about how the trust will be used? It is very hard to remove trustees and very stressful if guardians and trustees can't work together.

Of course, it's very unlikely any of this will come to pass in your case!

I also agree that it may be better to appoint Guardians of your own generation.

Disclaimer - I tend to confine my contributions to threads involving young people. This should not be taken to mean that I suspect that a fraud has already taken place or is being actively contemplated.